As I mentioned yesterday, my first voting experience in Spartanburg was troubling for a couple of reasons, not the least of which being finding the polling station. But after spending last evening at the Spartanburg County Office of Registrations and Elections — and seeing the work they put in — I’m reluctant to point any fingers. While I didn’t have the easiest voting experience of my life yesterday, I didn’t get the sense anyone was doing anything other than what they were told needed to be done.
After all, when you consider that voter turnout was a mere 14,088 out of the 165,002 registered voters in the county — that’s 8.54 percent — it’s hardly surprising that these municipal elections get relatively little attention. If there’s traditionally low turnout, then there’s less reason to assign resources the next time, right? And after a few decades of that cycle, I can see how we’ve gotten to the point where these elections seem more like an afterthought than the vital parts of the local political process that they are.
So, for today’s Big Idea, I’d like to see of we can both identify the problems with the municipal elections and come up with some common sense means of addressing them. If you voted yesterday, think of how your experience could have been made easier. If you didn’t vote — for whatever reason — think about what it would have taken to get you into the voting booth.
To start, I’ll rehash something which I touched on briefly yesterday, is a lack of signage informing people not only of the rough location of the polling stations, but actually directing people to the right spot. To sum up what I said yesterday, I voted at Southside Baptist Church, but even though I knew exactly where the church itself was, I had a hard time finding the actual office where voting happened. People at the church had no idea what I was talking about, and there were no signs in the vast parking lot directing me to go all the way around the building to the small office in back where a few photocopied signs marked the station.
How many potential, casual voters gave up because they couldn’t find the polling station? How widespread is this issue? In a situation like that, why not have a poll worker out front at a card table or something directing traffic? And if the polling places are more-or-less the same each year, why not invest in some significant signage? Or create a website that gives detailed information on exactly where is polling station is?
Of course, this really only skims the surface of ways local elections could be improved. Online access to the sample ballots, for instance, would make a world of difference (the Spark posted them this year, but I mean the Election office actually doing it). There are tons of voter resources — stuff you can easily get by going to the right offices — that simply aren’t easily available at the moment.
And that doesn’t even address how non-governmental groups — the media, local political activism groups and so forth — could help make the municipal elections more of a priority. How can we change the culture so that every race is as heated as City Council District 4 or some of the School Board races?
And when you consider that two City Council members were elected without need for a vote because they were unopposed, it also reveals a larger issue: getting people interested in local politics at all.
Since this is a very broad topic, I’ll just close with this reminder: This is a brainstorm, and there are no bad ideas. While not all ideas are practical, seemingly silly or impractical suggestions can kickstart the creative process, and that’s exactly what we’re going for here.
Steve Shanafelt
